I feel like I burnt myself out a little this past weekend. Having been out of town for a while, I felt deprived of home cooked meals and may have overcompensated for it by cooking up a storm this weekend. All in all, I was still trying to finish up in the kitchen at 10:30pm on Sunday night. Some of the things I made: home made butternut squash gnocchi with pork meatballs and kale, 3 batches of almond milk, buckwheat granola (so good!) and these cute little home made Oreo cookies!

The cookies are essentially chocolate shortbread with a white chocolate ganache filling. They are a bazillion times better than store bought Oreos (but I may be biased since I don’t like store bought ones to begin with). I think the success of these cookies comes from using really good quality cocoa. I used Valrhona cocoa which I purchased from Provisions by Duchess in Edmonton. The result was a very rich chocolate taste – definitely worth using a fancier cocoa. The recipe talks about using Guittard Cocoa Noir which makes a really dark, almost black cookie. Since I didn’t have this cocoa and wasn’t overly concerned with the colour of my Oreos, I opted out of searching for the Cocoa Noir. Either way, I think my batch turned out dark and pretty.

Before you guys jump right into making these cookies… a word of warning. This isn’t a recipe where you just combine everything in a bowl and throw it in the oven. I found the dough was very sensitive to temperature changes and I was constantly chilling the dough, having it warm up too much and become too soft, chilling again, etc. etc. So be prepared to spend some time running back and forth from the fridge or freezer. Same thing goes for the ganache filling – I found that it was a bit difficult to work with, would warm up in the piping bag in my hands and become too runny very quickly. I tried to work in small batches and keep the filling from overheating.

Also, I know that salt brings out the other flavours in baking, but I found the salt content a bit too high for my taste in these cookies so the recipe I’ve posted has been adjusted a bit.

The ingredients in the recipe are listed in very specific gram amounts… like 161 grams. I really believe that using your kitchen scale to accurately measure ingredients makes a huge difference in your final product. And the Bouchon Bakery book has a whole section on the merits of measuring ingredients – if the professionals say its worthwhile… it must be true However, since some kitchen scales (such as my own) can’t accurately measure very small weights, I have provided the approximate volumes for a few of the really small weights below.

Home Made Oreo Cookies

By Genia Rodnyansky
Published: March 12, 2013

Happy middle of the week!
I feel like I burnt myself out a little this past weekend. Having been out of town for a while, I felt …

Ingredients

125 gramswhite chocolate35% cocoa, chopped

15 gramsbutterunsalted

125 gramswhipping cream

259 gramsflour

87 gramscocoagood quality ie. Valrhona

1.6 gramsbaking soda(3/8 tsp)

227 gramsbutterunsalted

1.5 gramssalt(1/2 tsp)

161 gramsgranulated sugar

Instructions

Begin by making the ganache filling. Melt the white chocolate and 15 grams of butter together over low heat. Meanwhile bring the whipping cream to a simmer. Once the chocolate is melted and smooth, remove from heat and add the whipping cream. Mix until smooth. If there are any lumps, return to very low heat and mix until smooth. Cover and chill the ganache for a minimum of 4 hours.

Next, start the shortbread. Measure out the flour into a bowl. Sift in the cocoa and baking soda.

Place the 227 grams butter into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium-low speed with a paddle attachment until smooth. Add in the salt and mix for a few seconds. Add in granulated sugar and beat until fluffy.

Add the cocoa mixture to the butter mixture in two additions. Mix on low speed after each addition until fully combined.

Once the dough starts to come together, stop the mixer and shape the dough into two square discs. Chill until firm - about 1 hours.

Once the dough is chilled, preheat oven to 325F. Doll out the disc of dough between two sheets of parchment until it is about 1/8" thick. At this point, the dough will likely have softened. Return the rolled dough to fridge.

Once chilled, use a round or fluted cutter of your choice to cut out cookies. Place the cookies on a parchment-lined tray, leaving about 3/4" between cookies. Chill the tray once again before baking for 15 minutes or until cookies are firm. Bake for 15-17 minutes, rotating the trays midway. The cookies will be done when they are fragrant and small cracks appear on the surface.

Once the cookies are fully cooled, transfer ganache to the bowl of an electric mixer and mix with a paddle attachment until the mixture is smooth and thickens. Transfer ganache to a pastry bag. Pipe filling onto the half the cookies. Use another cookie to place on top of the filling. Press down slightly to create a sandwich.

Enjoy your cookies! They can be stored for up to 3 days in the fridge and are delicious dipped in (almond) milk.